How is human reproductive health affected by everyday encounters with a group of chemicals known as endocrine disruptors? This evening’s discussion will explore what we know about the endocrine disrupting chemicals in our waters, air, and consumer products, and our relationship to science, government, industry and environmentalism. What does the research tell us? How are they regulated here in Canada?

…stimulate interest in the use of the international human rights framework as a tool for gender, sexuality, and women’s rights advocacy in the United States and Canada (where human rights principles and rhetoric are invoked less often than in Latin America) and to reflect on the potential for domestic impact litigation in the Caribbean and Latin America (where such litigation is less familiar than in the United States and Canada). (source is abstract of Forward, see below)

There are two articles now available on SSRN. First, the Forward to vol 65 of the University of Miami Law Review, written by Catherine Bettinger-Lopez of U Miami Law. This article “attempts to capture the essence” of the material presented at the conference. Second, Rebecca Cook’s article. Professor Cook of U of T gave a keynote at the conference which has been published under the title “Modern Day Inquisitions“. She explains that her title describes current

attempts to secure the supremacy of fundamentalist religions and their hierarchies in matters of gender, sexuality, and reproduction.

So, she doesn’t pull her punches in this article. She describes some of the lessons she has learned in her long association with advocating for women’s reproductive freedoms, including:

the need to
• redefine religious space,
• understand technology as transformation, and
• build on the constitutive role of the law.

The article provides an interesting tour of the jurisprudence relating to reproductive health and justice across the Americas – recommended for those interested in the region and the topic.

Thanks to Linda Hutjens who compiles the excellent Reprohealth L listserv for the tip.